I highly doubt the employee was being fired. Laid off because of CLAD or bumping or something else, maybe. OUSD doesn’t fire people, especially teachers. It can’t fire people. The unions run the show.

Steven, the employee in question was fired (and was already being laid off). Don’t let the facts get in the way of your preconceived ideology, though.

Remember, two wrongs DO make a right.

Oh BTW, any vandalism? Don’t worry OUSD will pick up the tab (they have plenty of money for it).

Wait – our public servants own their jobs and kids can’t get expelled in OUSD unless they break someone’s bones or have over an ounce of marijuana on them.

Staff behavior will sink to lower lows than this if there continue to be no consequences for low-quality teaching and sometimes shockingly unacceptable behavior.

I want to know more about the kids who did donuts–are they tracking to graduate? Do they have 2.0s and did they pass the CAHSEE and complete OUSD’s senior project requirement? If yes to all three, the bar is really low for these idiots to be enrolled in high school in the first place, and THEN to walk after doing donuts and creating a major safety issue. The bar is super low. Dang. NextSet is pretty harsh, but he is right some of the time.

Orphal is right, too–the kids should get the book thrown at them no matter the staff involvement.

We should call OUSD “LOW-USD” for its low expectations of everyone. Accountability? Psssh.

I’m sure her parents and her class were proud of her speech. I know I was, and I don’t even know the girl. I think the kids did learn a valuable lesson, and their mistake won’t be repeated. It’s even possible, however unlikely, that our resident curmugeon might have found her words marginally acceptable.

And congratulations to Skyline’s class of 2010, especially to Amythyst, Jonathan, Michael, Joshua, Eliot, and everyone else whose names I don’t know, who’ve been friends and supporters of my son Kenton for the last four years. The teachers and staff made it possible for him to graduate, but all of you made it *fun* for him to go to school every day with your kindness and acceptance of his differences. I see great hope for your futures, and for the future of the world because all of you are in it.

That case was a widely discussed and published event from a long time ago. I wasn’t involved with it. It was significant because of the deftness with which the families of the boys avoided complications. It hasn’t been repeated since but it is remembered. I compare this to the typical Otis and Latifah bad night where by the time a Public Defender is handed the file they are indefensible. I’m suggesting that the difference is the shoddy way Otis and Latifah get disciplined – it sets them up for bad results later in life. Not that the public schools care.

And I sure don’t contend that any OUSD school is a “good school”. I am not into their reputation, I do support any incremental improvents that may occur. So I support the discipline efforts discussed here.

“Class and race” triumph? Well not exactly but it is involved. The Class issue here is discipline. Schools should teach that well. OUSD doesn’t. That’s why employers don’t hire their products given any alternative. OUSD should improve on this – it doesn’t require a budget increase to do so.

A final note on the race thing. It’s always been clear to me that the reason white liberals will not discipline blacks is the racism of soft expectations. Rad-Libs for example just don’t believe blacks can ever be held responsible for bad behavior – because they can’t help themselves. It’s not a “conspiracy” – that’s not my point. It’s a dogma – a belief system. It started with the Civil Rights movement of the mid 1960s and has been becoming more pervasive ever since. And I don’t buy it.

I don’t know the race of the players in this story. I know a OUSD demographics. Perhaps liberals don’t believe anybody is responsible for anything. So they toss discipline out the window and try to suppress it when found.

Yes, OJ did murder those people.

Brave New World.

“Good” schools graduate students in large numbers and prepare them for college or a career. Skyline’s CST scores do not suggest it is a good school. The rotating principal position over the last few years suggest it is not a well run school either. If you are going to get upset about Skyline’s “reputation” then at least get upset about the right thing.

But I do think these Seniors with cars come from families with more money than their peers, and therefore it stands to reason are going to some of those colleges Sharon listed. Nextset is correct in suggesting that class and race always triumph.

Nobody talked to the cops, they all lawyered up at the sight of the first uniform. (Very impressive for teens!!) A squadron of lawyers arrived at night – they must have been on Speeddial. They served to enforce the no talk rule.

All the physical evidence vanished completely and couldn’t be found anywhere including the pictures. No permission was granted for any searches, interviews were not granted, nobody was probation/parole searchable. All the involved were immediately removed by their families and secluded. As far as was known no one spoke of whatever it was that happened, not to their parents, not to each other, to no one, not ever. The BMWs were probably taken for a month.

The drunken girl involved found herself completely isolated with no corroborating statements from anyone and nothing physical left to support her story. She withdrew her complaint and just wanted to be left alone. The investigation ended.

Compare that to the typical disaster of a bad night for Otis and Latifah… Lots of evidence, lots of incriminating statements and admissions, permissive searches, search conditions, no lawyers, photos on the cellphones, etc etc. Sometimes even if “nothing” happened they are still running their mouths saying things that create problems civil, criminal, administrative, and just provocative.

There is a reason some people stay out of the courts and some people are riding revolving doors. And it’s not the Police that determine who is who – it’s their own behavior.

People are not angels, they do things from time to time that they shouldn’t do, especially adolescents. In a crisis the difference between those who survive and those who don’t is often a matter of training and discipline. If you are conditioned to have especially bad discipline and have no training for crisis management either, you are going to have real bad days. The poor outcomes I see with the classically “trained” ghetto school youth (of all colors) would not be so dire if they were schooled the way the poor black youth were previously before the new loosey goosey policies were adopted.

So I’m not going to cry if OUSD for once comes down on kids over misbehavior and the kids complain. It’s music to my ears. Don’t hear it often. Where I went to school if you even stood around looking guilty you got punished. By 12th grade we were still no angels, but we were very very good at staying out of trouble. If you had to do something you shouldn’t, you had alibis, escape routes, & scapegoats ready. At some point it was too much trouble to be bad, the planning was time consuming and we just grew up.

We do no favors for our kids by not swiftly & visibly punishing them for displeasing us.